Australian businesses can no longer apply card surcharges from October 1, 2026, under new rules that follow a Reserve Bank of Australia review and cover Visa, Mastercard, eftpos and American Express payments. Weekend and public-holiday surcharges, booking fees and service fees are not affected, and the RBA is also lowering interchange fee caps.
Why it matters: The RBA concluded that surcharging was no longer working as intended, so merchants that used it to recover card costs now have to absorb them or build them into prices. That puts more weight on acquirer pricing and on the lower interchange caps, which are expected to help small businesses most.
Source: business.gov.au, October 1, 2026
Related: TWTWIP week ending 2 October 2026
Image: Nick-D, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
